Life Itself

Takato Yamamoto

She fell asleep dreaming of fairy tales and tattoos. And sometime between moonset and sunrise, a bumble bee hummed across the pages of her heart. He made a hive in Once Upon a Time, and honeycombs in Happily Ever After, and on the pages in between, he scattered pollen and sunshine, night blooming jasmine and foxglove. He offered cherry blossoms to the dark and brooding thoughts, forget me nots to the lonely, forgotten places. And in the morning, she awoke tasting the golden truth of her, like honey tucked inside the roses of her cheeks.

I saw her once, years later. She had a tattoo on her leg that said “life itself is the most beautiful fairy tale of all.”

She was humming.